When Jim Read died at the age of seventy-one, he had about seen it all: A run-a-way at thirteen. A worldly education before entering the ministry. Being fired from church after church because of being a drunk. Working at various construction jobs until he had about done it all. Being in a race with the bottle and wondering if he would ever win. This is the story of his curiously tainted life.

If you like the "good old days," hard work, cars, girls, and even God, you will not only enjoy this book, but may find yourself thinking about your own life and what it means to be a boy growing into a man, husband, father and grandfather.

For a man who died in the prime of his life, he had much to say. Some of what he wrote is brilliant. Some is "way out, man." See what the mind is capable of in different periods of life. See what the mind contemplates when it is awash in various wonder drugs. The purpose for living is a quest of everyone, at sometime. Sometimes people figure it out -- sometimes they don't. How long does one need to decipher the "meaning of life?"